As stated above, animals have been used to represent human beings. Especially animations for kids – such as ‘Zootopia’, ‘Ratatouille’ – have used animals in that way. Interestingly, USA Today (2016) argues that the animation ‘Zootopia’ reflects real-world issues. USA Today (2016) claims that one of the issued picturised by the animation is racial profiling.

Picture 1.0. Disney’s ‘Zootopia’ (image credits: Disney)

Unlike adorable- and cute animals in ‘Zootopia’, some animals are often perceived as one that scares and slaughters humans. This is often used in films, such as ‘Jaws’ series, and ‘Jurassic Park’ series. As such movies reflect some kinds of animals as dangerous species, publics often perceive that sharks and wild bears are dangerous. However, an interesting fact is that, based on National Geographic’s Shark Attack Facts (2017), the number of people killed by sharks in 1996 was 13 while toilets injured around 43,000 Americans in the same year. According to this statistic, entering toilets should have been prohibited as these things killed numerous people. But who cares about this? Another interesting face is that, National Geographic (2017) states that, “for every human killed by a shark, humans kill approximately two million sharks”. I believe that some animals – especially sharks – have been very mispresented by mainstream movies.

Picture 2.0. JAWS Movie Poster (image credits: Universal Pictures)

Furthermore, each different animal is often represented as a good, or villain in some media. As mentioned previously, sharks are badly represented in Hollywood movies. What about animal documentaries? According to an online video uploaded by Howard (2016), a tiger that chases a deer is shown as a predator, and the deer is represented as a prey animal. I believe many people may think that the tiger is a bad creature as this thing chases and consumes the innocent- and poor prey.

Like ‘Zootopia’, rabbit is often represented as a friendly- and harmless creature. ‘Cat Shit One’ is an animation that two rabbit special forces soldiers fight in battlefields. Apparently, based on the online video uploaded by IDAmovie (2011), these ‘cute’ rabbits are shown as goods, and ‘ugly’ donkeys in this animation are represented as villains holding AKM assault rifle, and RPG-7 rocket launcher.

The representations of such animals have been intended by humans, not animals. However, do you believe that we have such privileges of choosing whether or not specific kinds of animals are good or evil? Perhaps this phenomenon is relevant to speciesism. Regarding the definition of speciesism, English Oxford Living Dictionaries (2017) states that, “the assumption of human superiority leading to the exploitation of animals”.

I hereby argue that such representations of animals are wrong. We know that humans have been the most dominant species on the Earth. However, does it mean that we are superior to other creatures? I do not think so. Animals also have egos that must be respected. Accordingly, I would like to say that we should respect their egos.

Rural poverty in Africa is also often used by numerous media. Do you recognise this photograph? This photo was taken by Kevin Carter, and is also one of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs (The New York Time Company 2009). The photographer has been criticised for standing by and doing nothing. However, the truth is, he chased the vulture after taking some more photos (Rare Historical Photos 2013a). Rare Historical Photos (2013a) states that, “he took a few more photos before chasing the bird away”. Unfortunately, the South African photographer Kevin Carter committed suicide in the same year he won the Pulitzer Prize (Rare Historical Photos 2013a). Perhaps this has been criticised because not all photos tell background stories.

And this photograph is perhaps the most well-known poverty pornography these days. The photograph is also known as the death of Aylan Kurdi (Fantz 2015). A Syrian refugee family Aylan Kurdi’s family was dreaming of a new life in a new land. Unfortunately, the dream has gone because of the miserable incident. A toddler was just two years old.

Even though the poverty pornography has been criticised, some say that the poverty pornography is necessary. The Highway of Death that was taken by Ken Jarecke during the Iraq War in 1991 is one that contains the terror of war. According to Rare Historical Photos (2013b), Ken Jarecke said that, “but if I don’t take pictures like these, people like my mom will think war is what they see in movies”. This showed very clearly why war was a terrible thing. However, according to Rare Historical Photos (2013b), the majority of American media declined to publish that photograph. This is perhaps because the American media learnt something during the Vietnam War.

As mentioned previously, some argue that the so-called poverty pornography is helpful in raising awareness about poverty, aiding poor- and miserable people, and ending poverty. However, some disagree with that. Young (1997) argues that publics would see problems rather than solutions, and they see the Third World as a place of misery. I completely agree with that. I believe that the first thought that comes to our mind when we see African countries is hunger, HIV/AIDS, and orphans instead of solutions, such as charitable donations.

How are poor- and miserable people portrayed on media? Perhaps they are misrepresented as lazy people, or terrorists. Who is identifying these people? Or is it made by themselves? Of course, I do not think so. This is created by someone looking for excessive public attention, including media, journalists, and non-government organisations (NGO). For instance, as monetary donations are somewhat important for NGOs, the organisations focus on publishing the so-called poverty pornography. Perhaps merchandising poverty is another name of the poverty pornography. What if an individual commercialises poverty so as to get any monetary benefit? I believe that Slumdog Millionaire (2008) is a bad- and sick movie.

Before I begin, let me ask you some questions: How often do you take selfies? Are you a social network connoisseur? Personally, I do not like to take selfies. And I am not a big fan of social network service. I would prefer to use instant messengers (e.g. Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp) rather than social network platforms.

As of today, almost everyone – especially Generation Y and Z – knows what selfie is. According to English Oxford Living Dictionaries (2017), selfie, also known as Selfy, is defined as a photography that a person has taken of himself or herself with media devices (especially a digital camera, smartphone, or webcam), and is usually posted on various social network platforms (SNS), including Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. Other than the definition of selfie mentioned above, I define selfie as one that portrays one’s physical attractiveness.

As shown in Picture 1.0, according to the state of this picture, this photo seems to have gone through countless years. Since the invention of camera (for your information, the first camera was designed by Johann Zahn in 1685), the first selfie has known to be ‘Robert Cornelius’ Self-Portrait’ (The Public Domain Review 2017). According to the Public Domain Review (2017), this first selfie was taken by Robert Cornelius in 1839.

Picture 1.0 – The First Selfie in the World (a copyright has expired – the public domain)

Of course, many selfie connoisseurs are interested in taking pictures of themselves. Over the last few years, selfie has become a global phenomenon, especially in the digital context. As this has become one of the today’s hottest trends, we can easily see other’s selfies on many social network platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and dating applications (e.g. Tinder). But one thing I am concerned about is an act of distorting reality. Undoubtedly, everyone wants to be seen as attractive (cute, beautiful, or handsome). For instance, using Photoshop tools or Snapchat filters. However, can one argue that a person portrayed in a selfie is him or her? Perhaps when one’s reality is portrayed differently in a photography, that one in the selfie may not be the same one.

I believe selfie culture is somewhat related to digital narcissism. According to Back et al. (2010), a narcissist prefers to be exhibitionistic, and is highly concerned with his or her physical appearance. Keen (2012) defines digital narcissism as a self-promotional obsession driven by one’s needs to generate his or her own fame to the digital context. Like I said, an act of posting selfies on SNSs is related to narcissism – Sorokowski et al. (2015) argue that such selfie posting behaviour is related to narcissism, especially amongst men. For instance, uploading a handsome looking photo as one’s Facebook- or Instagram profile picture.

Another interesting fact is that selfies could cause mental health problems. Donnelly (2016) states that taking selfies may trigger mental illness, such as anxiety and depression, as selfie culture puts massive pressures on girls (especially young women), according to a research on mental illness. I assume that this problem is caused by superficialism. Perhaps this is a result of peer pressure (or social pressure) amongst women.

As written above, I personally agree with those arguments: people taking selfies seemed to be narcissistic. Of course, loving oneself is not a bad thing. However, I really cannot understand those who exaggerates his or her portrayal identity by using image editing utilities, such as Adobe Photoshop. This so-called behaviour is, perhaps, ‘selfie addiction’. People do better consider #Shameless_Selfie.

As of 2016, self-regulation on the Internet has become stricter ever than before. Which means that a large number of commercial websites enforce their power without a government’s intervention. In other words, the commercial companies/organisations restrict Internet users’ rights that are so-called the free-use of contents.

One of the recent instances is that Facebook deleted the photo of the napalm girl (The Verge 2016). As a result, this has become an issue among Internet users (The Verge 2016). Everyone, who studied the modern history especially the Cold War, may recognise the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo ‘Napalm Girl’ taken by Associated Press (AP) photographer Nick Ut (AP 2016). This well-known photo shows a naked Vietnamese child Phan Thi Kim Phuc fleeing from a South Vietnamese Air Force bomber’s napalm attack (AP 2016). Besides, this image is the historic photo that represents the brutality of war.

According to the Facebook’s community standards (2016) in terms of nudity, this indicates:

“People sometimes share content containing nudity for reasons such as awareness campaigns or artistic projects. We restrict the display of nudity because…”

“We also restrict some images of female breasts if they include the nipple, but we always allow photos of women actively engaged in breastfeeding or showing breasts with post-mastectomy scarring.”

Definitely, Facebook worried about the violation of the community standards (2016) “Facebook restricts the display of nudity”. However, Facebook allows the photo of women breastfeeding as you can see on Facebook. But honestly, the Company did not allow the display of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo. What an ironic situation. Are you serious, Facebook? That photo is the historic proof of the brutality of the Vietnam War that can be used for an educational purpose.

The guidelines regulated by Facebook allow people to share ‘good contents’, and prevent people to share ‘unfit contents’. However, this is very subjective. What kinds of contents can be classified either ‘good contents’ or ‘unfit contents’? And who can judge this criterion? Maybe Mark Zuckerberg?

I found an interesting news article which was about a goldfish. According to Hipsley (2008), it is widely known that “there is a popular belief that goldfish only have a three-second memory span and every lap of their fishbowl is like seeing the world for the first time”. Besides, a report published by Microsoft Canada (2015) indicates that the average human attention span is eight seconds while the average attention span of a goldfish is nine seconds.

The reason why I mentioned goldfish’s memory capacity is that I want to discuss one’s attention capacity. These days many people are using smartphone especially among those who were born between 1980 and later than that, who are so-called Generation Y and Z. Besides, smartphone and other electronic devices notifies endless notifications in real time. This can be one of reasons why we are not able to concentrate on a specific task. Metaphorically, Generation Y and Z are similar to goldfish in terms of attention capacity. According to this situation, getting-things-done (GTD) is becoming popular among those who want to increase their productivity. For instance, they listen to music for getting things done that is also known as concentration/focus music.

In order to do a Week 9’s assignment, I asked my girlfriend whether I could examine her attention capacity. And she agreed with my request, and she agreed with publishing examination results on my WordPress blog as well. Prior to the examination, I had designed a short task that would examine her attention capacity: I asked her to read an online article for ten minutes. And while she was reading the article, I examined her attention capacity. During the examination, I found out an interesting fact that she was not able to fully concentrate on reading the online article because of instant messenger/SNS (Facebook) notifications on her smartphone. After being alerted to the notifications, she opened an instant messenger/Facebook application, and she replied to her messenger/SNS friends. This is in contradiction to my attention capacity, as I can fully concentrate on a specific task.

Multitasking

According to the report published by Microsoft Canada (2015), this report argues that “social media can drain one’s resources, reducing the ability to allocate attention, connect with content on an emotional level, and process information”. It can be defined that this is somewhat similar to the result of the examination. It is known that mankind has higher intelligence than other creatures, however can it be justified that mankind is somewhat similar to a goldfish?

In Week 7, we learnt the use of public televisions, digital public signage and personal IT devices that were used to manage the pressures and opportunities of passing time in public areas. Besides, we learnt the types of public media including outdoor TVs, and Google Street View. And in this week, several tasks have been given which are: photographing someone who are using or watching media in a public place, explaining how I managed the ethics of this photography, and listing points that made public space ethnography effective.

Firstly, I asked one of my classmates taking BCM240. I asked her politely whether I was allowed to take a photo of her using/watching a medium. And she agreed with this photography. In order to satisfy the appropriateness of the photography including her privacy, I informed her that her face would not be taken and a photo would be used only for an academic purpose. And as you can see below, this was taken at a class room after finishing a lecture.

On the other hand, if I am asked for taking a photograph in a public area that contains an image of someone else I do not know, I would say no. Although an information sheet published by the Arts Law Centre of Australia (2016) guarantees that it is possible to take a photograph in public without asking his/her permission (there are a number of exceptions/limitations), I would not take it. According to the unspoken rules of our society that also are known as tacit knowledge, taking a photo of someone I do not know is inappropriate with even permission. And the second reason is that I am shy.

In terms of managing public space ethnography, there are some regulations and safeguards that can make public space ethnography effective/safe. According to the information sheet written by ALCA (2016), this shows that there are a number of regulations/safeguards. For instance, one of the regulations is “the use of surveillance devices and listening devices is regulated in most states and territories… the Surveillance Devices Act 1999 (Victoria) and Surveillance Devices Act 1998 (Western Australia) make it an offence to photograph a “private activity” without the consent of the subject” (ALCA 2016).

This week’s topic was quite interesting. Consequentially, I was able to learn the street photographer’s rights published by ALCA (2016). Previously, I did not know that such things were existed.